OFFSTAGE: Keith Urban’s Intervention

(CMT Offstage keeps a 24/7 watch on everything that’s happening with country music artists behind the scenes and out of the spotlight.)

Keith Urban fans all know he went to rehab four years ago. But Monday (Nov. 29), when Oprah Winfrey asked Urban about his substance abuse, she asked him specifically, “What was the substance?” He replied, “Everything. Alcohol and cocaine, predominantly.” Then he talked candidly, more so than I’ve ever seen him do (and do I love Winfrey for her ability to make that happen), about how his wife Nicole Kidman saved him with an intervention. He said he had just gone off the rails, and then, Nic saved him. “That’s the point right there where she really should’ve just walked. I’m just so glad she didn’t,” he said, with a lump in his throat. “She made a decision to turn around and initiate, ultimately, this intervention. And it was done in such a way that the love in that room at that moment was just right, and I was like, ‘Put the cuffs on, let’s go.’ He went on to describe the intervention, saying, “It was Nic and a small group of people I’m close to in Nashville. To see love in action to that degree — at that time in that way — I’d never experienced anything like that. And all the rest of it is very, very, very personal. I was actually set to go and play a show the next night, and I just said, ‘I don’t want to do anything but go.'” He left that night. That’s the power of an intervention from the people who love you the most.